


Sleep

by draculard



Category: Star Wars Legends: Thrawn Trilogy - Timothy Zahn
Genre: Domestic Fluff, Exile, Ficlets, Humor, Implied Past Violence, Implied Rukh, Light Hurt/Comfort, Literal Sleeping Together, M/M, Sharing a Bed, Ysalimiri (Star Wars), implied trauma
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-15
Updated: 2021-01-15
Packaged: 2021-03-13 03:21:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 1,123
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28771533
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/draculard/pseuds/draculard
Summary: They say you never really love someone until you're willing to share your bed.
Relationships: Gilad Pellaeon/Thrawn | Mitth'raw'nuruodo
Comments: 4
Kudos: 35





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> These are just three short ficlets that popped into my head. Fair warning the last one is extra short.
> 
> Come say hi on tumblr, I'm draculard there too

In all their time aboard the Chimaera, this was the first time Pellaeon had ever heard Thrawn talk himself hoarse. He lay in bed, letting Thrawn’s voice wash over him; the tone was muted, his cadence automatic. Thrawn’s eyes were far away.

The most astonishing part of all was that it wasn’t about art, Pellaeon thought. 

“Icebergs and frozen oceans,” Thrawn was murmuring. His hands were folded over his abdomen; he’d leaned away when he started, hadn’t touched Pellaeon since then — never did touch Pellaeon when it came to moments like this. He always waited for Pellaeon to initiate it, then acted like he didn’t care. 

“Have you ever seen a frozen ocean?” Thrawn asked.

“Once or twice,” said Pellaeon, the first real words he’d said in forty minutes; his voice came out rusty. He’d been listening too hard, enraptured, hadn’t even bothered to fill the silence with little noises that showed he was paying attention.

“They’re dangerous,” Thrawn murmured, eyes far away. Pellaeon got the impression that he'd wanted to say something else, perhaps 'beautiful,' but forced himself to say 'dangerous' instead. “The ice…”

“It’s there year-round?” Pellaeon asked when Thrawn trailed off. “It never melted?”

Thrawn paused, considering it with his head cocked. Lying down, the gesture only made him look more weary.

“No, it never melted,” he said. “The snow did, but not the ice. Not while I was there.”

Pellaeon waited, watching Thrawn’s eyes, waiting for his lips to part and his tongue to flick out to wet them, waiting for him to start again. But after more than an hour of talking, Thrawn apparently had nothing more to say. 

Or nothing he felt ready to share.

Pellaeon reached over then, his fingers trailing lightly over Thrawn’s forearm, asking a silent question. When Thrawn didn’t stop him, he kept going, covered Thrawn’s hand with his own and squeezed, pulled it to his chest. 

“It sounds lovely,” Pellaeon said.

Thrawn gave a humorless snort, his eyes fixed on the ceiling.

“You don’t like ice planets,” he said. 

“So I’d be miserable there?” Pellaeon asked, one eyebrow raised. He pressed his lips against Thrawn’s knuckles to emphasize his point. “Even with present company to keep me entertained?”

Thrawn’s chest rose, a slow deep breath that he seemed to hold for a moment before he let it go. His eyes shifted down Pellaeon’s face, studying him, then to their joined hands. To Pellaeon’s lips. Something in his expression flickered, too subtle and too quick for Pellaeon to read. His lips parted, showing his teeth; he almost said something, cast it aside, banished all expression from his face.

He pulled Pellaeon’s hand to him, echoed the earlier kiss to his knuckles with one of his own. When he looked up again, the mask was back in place, his eyes cool, his lips curved into a faint but playful smile.

“What about your home planet?” he said, voice rough.

The weight of an unspoken word dissolved between them. Pellaeon took a deep breath. Should have known better, he thought; should have realized it was too much today, that he couldn’t invite a topic like that after Thrawn had already told him so much. To speak of exile now — to even hint about it — would be too overwhelming, and he could see Thrawn pulling back, reinstating his iron grip on his emotions.

The mix of guilt and affection must have shown on his face, because Thrawn reacted to it, his eyes softening, his muscles relaxing as he sank back against the mattress.

“Tell me,” he prompted again.

With a quiet sigh, Pellaeon told him about Corellia, his voice a low rumble; he didn’t stop talking until Thrawn was asleep. 


	2. Chapter 2

He wasn’t sure at first what woke him. His first thought was the same thing every captain thinks when he wakes in the middle of the night: that he’d heard a klaxon sounding the alarm. But there was no klaxon, no flashing lights calling his men to battle stations. Only the dark room, a dim red glow, and the sound of harsh breathing at his side.

Pellaeon turned, saw Thrawn lying on his back beside him, his eyes open and fixed upon the ceiling. Thrawn’s lips were parted, his teeth clenched. He inhaled silently, exhaled in a breathless hiss, like a runner trying to catch his breath. 

Pellaeon said nothing; he noted the stress lines around Thrawn’s eyes, the hints of pain or exhaustion on his brow. He watched Thrawn’s eyes flick over to him, but neither said a word. Thrawn’s lungs stuttered, his eyes squeezing closed briefly in a shaky gasp.

He didn’t react when Pellaeon’s hand came down on his chest. Thrawn’s skin was cold and slick with sweat; his hands were curled, one resting on his waist and one over his heart, and that was the one Pellaeon covered with his own, holding it lightly. Not squeezing, not lacing their fingers together. Beneath their hands, shining almost silver in the darkness, was the knotted scar tissue over Thrawn’s sternum. 

Sleep tugged at Pellaeon. His muscles stayed heavy, his eyes soft and heavy-lidded; he couldn’t wake up enough to feel any anxiety or concern. It wasn’t the first time one of them would wake up like this, and it wouldn’t be the last; long experience told him that to radiate a sense of silent calm was the best thing he could do.

It didn’t take effect at once. The heat from Pellaeon’s hand soaked into Thrawn’s skin gradually, and as it did — at a glacial, torturous pace — Thrawn’s breathing slowed, too. His breaths became longer — then quieter — and then finally he was able to close his mouth and swallow past a dry throat, start breathing almost normally through his nose again. That was when he blinked, shifted his hand around beneath Pellaeon’s, twined their fingers together tightly.

When his breathing evened out at last, Pellaeon closed his eyes and went back to sleep. 


	3. Chapter 3

It was 0100, and there was something hard and warm butting against Pellaeon’s hand. He cracked his eyes open, too bleary to react the way Thrawn probably wanted him to, and turned his head. Thrawn was tucked against Pellaeon, his face buried in his shoulder, his breathing even and slow. 

Gently, Pellaeon tangled his hands in Thrawn’s hair and scratched lightly at his scalp. It was all he needed to do to wake the other man up.

“Is there an ysalimir in bed with us?” he whispered, flexing his palm against the hardness. “Or are you just happy to see me?”

One narrow red eye squinted up at him through the darkness. Without a word, Thrawn flicked the blankets away from his waist.

There was an ysalimir in bed with them.


End file.
